Key Facts

Andrew Wade is a hydrologist specialising in water pollution at ecosystem, catchment and continental scales. His current research focuses on finding solutions to water resource and water pollution problems in mountain regions (Andes, Tien Shan) where glacial melt is an issue, and in UK, European and world-wide river-systems where eutrophication is the main problem.

Andrew has led and co-led major projects to help find solutions to improve water quality set in the context of sustainable production and broader ecosystem services. A recent example includes the NERC Macronutrients project, Turf2Surf (2013-18) which focused on an integrated assessment of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycling in relation to carbon sequestration, water quality, food production and biodiversity (with B Emmett, CEH and C Jago, Bangor) and co-development of the SimplyP model with Leah Jackson-Blake and James Sample, a new catchment-scale, parsimonious phosphorus model.

He has also led on innovation in water quality monitoring and modelling, including the EPSRC-funded project, Linking improved modelling of pollution to innovative development of sensors2009-12) which progressed a new multi-determinand sensor based on microfluid dynamics (Hull University), and developed and installed field-based water quality systems equipped to monitor nitrogen and phosphorus alongside multi-paramter sondes (CEH and EA), all with remote data acquisition (Wade et al. 2012).

a wide-range of stakeholders including government departments, regulators, and private companies to improve access to water quality models and data (CAMMP, 2014-2017);

human geographers, soil scientists, palaeoenvironment scientists and archaeologists to understand how climate change and landscape degradation, through impacts on the water resource, shaped cultural development in Jordan as part of the Leverhulme funded Water. Life and Civilisation project (2004-2009), and

Andrew obtained a BSc (1994) in Physics from the University of Leicester, a MSc (1995) from Newcastle University and a PhD (1999) in Physical Geography from the University of Aberdeen. He worked at the Macaulay Land Research (now James Hutton Institute) on understanding the controls on water quality in large UK river systems, then moved to the University of Reading in 1999 were he co-developed the INCA suite of catchment water quality models with colleagues as part of the EU FP5 INCA project.

Current Research projects:

ACCESS. Adaptive Capacity of Farming Communities to Climate Change in the Peruvian Andes, British Academy. Led by Prof Nick Branch. 2019-2020.

SCIWAI. Solutions for Clean Water in Central Asia: What Happens After the Ice? Reading-based UKRI GCRF Strategic Fund – Substantial Research Project. Led by Prof Maria Shahgedanova. 2018-2020.

Sustainable production or pollutant swapping? Gaseous reactive nitrogen emissions and leaching from rice-wheat rotations under denitrifier-inoculated fertilizer addition. Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology and the University of Reading collaboration. Co-PI – Prof Weishou Shen (NUIST).

Wade, A. J. and Neal, C. 2002. Calcite saturation in the River Dee. Sci. Total Env., 282/283, 327-340.Neal, C., Jarvie, H.P., Wade, A .J. and Whitehead, P.G. 2002. Water quality functioning of lowland permeable catchments: inferences from an intensive study of the River Kennet and upper River Thames. Sci. Total Env., 282/283, 471-490.

Wade, A. J., Langan, S. J., Soulsby, C., Smart, R. Edwards, A. C., Jarvie, H. P. and Cresser, M. S. 1998. Impacts of land use and flow on nitrate concentrations and fluxes of an upland river system in north east Scotland. Proceedings of Headwater '98, the Fourth International Conference on Headwater Control, Merano, Italy: 127-137.

Dikko, A.U., Smart, R., Wade, A. J. and Cresser, M. S., Possible effects of losses in drainage water on the copper and zinc status of Scottish upland soils and their sustainability. ITC Journal: Special Congress Issue: Geo-information for Sustainable Land Management, 3/4 (1997), published on CD-ROM.